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Empowering the State Will Not Advance Social Conservatism

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Department of Education Building in Washington, DC (Mark Van Scyoc/Shutterstock.com).
Working to restore liberty is not certain to win the culture war but acquiescing to the big administrative state will surely lose it.

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A Reagan Holdover’s Belated Appreciation for George H.W. Bush

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George Bush signs the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; Washington DC, July 26,1990.
At the time, I condemned him, but now I am far more grateful to George H.W. Bush, who did not inflict much harm and did some occasional good.

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The Least Democratic Branch Is Neither the Senate nor the Courts

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Tung Cheung / Shutterstock.com
Electoral accountability of the executive branch is the reason the Constitution vests executive power in an elected president in the first place.

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Ben Sasse on How the Administrative State Injures American Democracy

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Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) speaking at CPAC in 2015 (Image: Gage Skidmore, CC-BY-SA-3.0).
Senator Sasse asks: Are there ways for Congress to answer its need for administrative expertise without losing electoral accountability?

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Competition Between Courts and Agencies

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Studio Porto Sabbia/Adobe Stock Images.
The ability of Congress to choose between administrative systems weakens the separation-of-powers system.

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Four Reasons for Pessimism About Free Speech on Campus

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The Free Speech Movement Cafe at UC Berkeley (Gary Yim/Shutterstock.com).
Universities should create an atmosphere conducive to free speech, where ideas are welcomed so long as they are backed by reasons.

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Blurred Lines in Contemporary Warfare

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A U.S. Navy MQ-4C Triton surveillance drone at NAS Jacksonville, October 26, 2014 (Michael Fitzsimmons / Shutterstock.com).
There seems to be an inevitable erosion of limits to military power in the United States, and Rosa Brooks helps us understand how this happened.

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Democratic Persuasion and the Weakness of Social Democracy

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Tung Cheung / Shutterstock.com
Democracy is subject to many forms of persuasion, within and without: this should be cause to give central governments less power, not more.

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We the Bureaucrats

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Bureaucracy at work (Nuk2013 / Shutterstock.com)
Gillian Metzger argues that the administrative state is constitutionally required, an argument possible only if you ignore original meaning.

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Left-Liberal Justifications of a Constitutional Coup Against the Separation of Powers

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Entrance to General Services Administration, Washington, D.C. (Mark Van Scyoc/Shutterstock.com)
The bureaucracy possesses the power to make law and dictate how its statutes should be interpreted - this flies in the face of the separation of powers.

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